sigh...

I know, It's been over a month. I'm currently going through some personal troubles (don't worry, Monica and I are just fine and still happily engaged).

After eight and a half years and countless hours of sacrificing my free time, sleeping on the office floor to get the job done, coming up with ways to save money, and working closely with clients on both small and large projects, I was laid off from The Show Factory, Inc., where I ran the lighting department, due to the bad economy and complete lack of work. I was told that they would possibly bring me back in October depending if work picks up for them.

In the mean time, I have been neglecting my photography while I try and figure out what the next step in life is. I still take photos whenever possible and have a couple of galleries on the Palm Springs Metromix website from the past month and a half.

Start spreading the news...

Today is the day after one of the biggest moments in my life. I proposed to my girlfriend of over two years. I don't like to brag but I think I pulled it off very well with a nice romantic stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge a drop to one knee and then the question. I think she was pretty happy, as I am.




Taken by a random couple that happened to be standing nearby. I walked up and asked "Can you please take a picture of me and my new fiance". Their response was "aw, when did you get engaged?" to which I replied "two minutes ago". I think they were just as surprised as Monica.


This is a random un-touched photo I took while Monica made a 'few' phone calls.

Adventure Time!

I'm off! Well, actually, I've arrived already... to NYC that is. I'm on a little vacation get away to visit family, friends, and the city I love and used to call home, New York City. It's day one and I've just finished uploading my last Metromix assignment, the "Move" party at Dink's Ultra-Lounge. The point of the trip is to get some rest and have some fun so I'm not sure if yet if I'm going to post photos while here. Here is one photo though from last Friday's party. You can find more HERE. There will be more posted on the Palm Springs Metromix site on Monday.

What's going on?

So I've been busy. What does that mean? I'm a little behind where I would like to be as far as uploading new photos.

So just to keep you posted if you're looking for photos.
*I'm uploading photos of the 6/20/09 Eeka Mouse Concert to Metromix. They typically will have them posted on their website by the following Monday. I'll have even more photos from the concert posted on my website within the next few days.
*6/12/09 Red Barn Show (Wyte Gye & Roads of Rome), I'm pretty close to having those posted.
*6/7/09 Encore Car Show. Haven't even started but I'm sure I have some good photos in there.
There's more but I tend to do the most recent first and then work backwards to catch up. Paying jobs of course go first and the photos I shoot for me follow.

There's plenty to see on the site now so Thank You for your patience!
-Anthony

Here is some samples of recent work...

Color me this...

At the end of last month I photographed a Hip-Hop show at The Point After in Cathedral City, Ca. The venue has a slightly elevated dinning area for a stage and does not have any type of stage lighting. I've photographed at this space one other time and knew the challenges that were ahead of me. I decided to take another crack at using saturate theatrical gels on the flash (you can find my first attempt here).

This time around, there was enough ambient light to see what color I was putting onto the flash and easily get rid of the one's I didn't like. Here are samples of what I ended up with. There is no editing to the photo other than minor adjustments to levels (Exposure, Recovery, Fill, Blacks, Brightness, and contrast). All colors were Apollo Gel from Apollo Design Technology, inc.


Purple - A Favorite (it also results in good black and white conversions)


Yellow - Another Favorite


Amber


Cyan - Ehh... Not too bad


Blue - was really a hard read and I did adjust how the color was translated.


Blue to Black & White Conversion.


Red - I think. Red was a hard color to work with but I haven't given up on it yet.


Green!

There are plenty more colors for me to try in the future and as I try them, I'll share them with you.

Take care for now!
-Anthony

Mmm Mmm Good!

I had the pleasure of dining out with my lovely girlfriend a few weeks ago at Copley's On Palm Canyon located in downtown Palm Springs. The restaurant was having their annual "A Taste of Hawaii" themed evening and I just happened to have my camera with me. You can find the pictures here but I just had to share a few of the food photos I took. It still makes my mouth water.

Rock & Roll

My recent Metromix adventures gave me the opportunity to photograph the bands Staind & Hoobastank at Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella, CA. The evening started with taking photos of concert goers as they entered the show room before the concert. Once the show began, I was allowed to take photos of each band for the first three songs. I'm not exactly sure why the bands limit how long we photographers can shoot but one theory I have is that they don't want us photographers in the way of the audience for the entire concert.

So what to do when you have such limited time? At this point a little experience helps. I've been shooting concerts, usually from a good distance back because I'm usually running a lighting console at the same time, for a few years now. What I do is set the camera in manual mode, the metering mode to Spot and open up my aperture to the max, which for my primary lens is (28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) is F/3.5 at its widest setting. I try to keep the ISO to no more than 800 but will bring it up to 1600 and sometimes 3200 (but it gets a little to noisy for me). My shutter speed varies depending on the lighting but I try and keep it faster than 1/60 of a second. Images Stabilization is definitely on and makes a big difference. One important setting is your drive should be set to High. Even though I usually have the shot in mind, by having the drive set to high, I can press and hold the shutter down to take a few rapid shots. The first shot may be blurry because the camera WILL shake a little when you first press the shutter button down but the second and third will probably be ok and the last show may be blurry as you remove your finger from the shutter.

For this concert, I went back and forth between my 28-135mm and 70-200mm f2.8L IS lenses but in the end I preferred the wider zoom since I was so close and I was happier with what I was seeing in the view finder. I did try aperture priority mode but what happens is since the lighting is constantly changing, if you meter point hits a dark spot, it will slow the shutter speed down WAY to much and you will actually end up with an over exposed image that's also blurry. I recommend playing with ISO and shutter speeds to see the different results you can end up with. I'll crank the ISO up to 1600 when I need to get the shutter speed up (if I'm not using my monopod) and also when I want to get a little more background into the photo. You can find more photos of the concert at the main Staind & Hoobastank Photogallery.

I really like this photograph of Staind Bassist Johnny April (f/4.5, 1/1250, ISO 800 & a little Light Room Love).